My favorite songs are sad songs. I bet many of yours are, too.
But lately I’ve been wondering, “Why?”
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Maybe there are just more sad songs out there. For songwriters, sadness is a more potent muse than joy. Music historians tells us that the oldest surviving songs are ballads. Studies show that sad songs top the charts more often than happy ones.
Recently I asked people on Facebook to share their favorite sad song. I was struck by the range of musical styles, themes, and emotional terrain. Below are some of the responses, along with a few of my own favorites (indicated with an asterisk):
Not surprisingly, there are were many sad songs about death: losing a parent (Hazel Dickens, “Mama’s Hand”; Crystal Shawnda, “Daddy You Can Let Go Now”), losing a friend (James Taylor, “Fire and Rain”), losing a child (Eric Clapton, “Tears in Heaven”; *Andy Gullahorn, “The End of a World”), and losing a pregnancy (Jetty Rae, “Climbing Clouds”). Heartbreak is another huge category: the heartbreak of abandonment (*Anais Mitchell, “Shenandoah”; *Over The Rhine; “Suitcase”), the pain of love growing cold (Crowded House, “Fall at Your Feet”; Chris Stapleton, “Either Way”), the regret of wasted years (Patty Griffin, “Long Ride Home”), and the giant bummer that life and love sometimes is (Harry Chapin, “A Better Place to Be”). Others offered songs about loneliness (The Beatles, “Eleanor Rigby”), addiction (The Black Crows, “She Talks to Angels”), and depression (Otis Redding, “Sitting on the Dock of the Bay”). There were also songs about feeling sadness for other people’s sadness (Brad Paisley, “One of Those Lives”; Coldplay, “Fix You”). There are songs that mourn the loss of innocence (*Andrew Peterson, “The Ballad of Jody Baxter”), what is good slipping away with time (*David Mallett, “A Long Goodbye”; *Mark Heard/Pierce Pettis, “Nod Over Coffee”), the tragedy of a squandered life (*Gillian Welch, “One More Dollar,”) the pain of seeing your child struggle (*Pierce Pettis, “Black Sheep Boy”), the nostalgia of summer’s end (*Ben Shive, “The Fall”), the pain of remembering what once was and can no longer be (Neil Halstead, “Wittgenstein’s Arm”), and even the complicated grief of leaving something you thought was terrible, but a part of you had grown to love (*Stan Rogers, “Leave Her Johnny, Leave Her”). And that just scratches the surface. What would you add to this list?
Music can also communicate sadness apart from words: Consider the haunting tones of a Mozart Mass, the searching sadness of an Irish ballad, the wail of a blues guitar , or the melancholic croon of Brazilian Fado.
Sad music resonates with us in a special way. But why are we drawn to sad songs? Don’t we spend our lives trying to avoid pain and maximize pleasure?
What Sad Songs Do for Us
Here’s why I think we continue to enjoy sad songs, and why they matter.
First, sad songs help us connect to and make sense of our own pain. When we hear about someone else’s heartbreak or loss, we think, “Ok, I’m not the only one.” We’ve all had losses, large and small. We’ve all longed for a relationship we didn’t have or been hurt by one we did. We’ve all been disappointed by what is, ached for something that is gone, or longed for something that never came. We’ve all felt melancholy, insecurity, and shame. To quote Michael Stipe of REM, “everybody hurts.”
One way they help us to make sense of our pain is to give a richer vocabulary for it. Our Sad Song Playlist shows the gradations of sadness that the human heart can feel: nostalgia, regret, homesickness, melancholy, sorrow, gloom, dejection, heartache, heartbreak, anguish, misery, bitterness, desolation. Adding infinite variety, dark threads of sadness can even be woven through positive emotions (bittersweet? Longing? Transition?).
But I think sad songs are important for an even bigger reason—a theological reason. Sad songs remind us that the world is a broken place and that we are broken people. Behind every sad song is a question, or an echo of a question, waiting for an answer. Is this the best life has to offer? Are there any happy endings? Does my pain matter? Is death really the end? Am I loved? These are theological questions.
Lament: Sad Songs of the Bible
The Bible has a special place for sad songs. The technical term is lament, which one writer aptly defines as a “cry of despair, anger, protest, and doubt.” A full one-third of the Psalms fall into this category. These sad songs of the Bible affirm the importance of singing our pain. They can also teach us what to do with our sadness.
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Laments are raw and honest about the negative emotions. Unlike the heart string-tugging sentimentality common to so many songs of our time, Psalms of lament give full voice to experiences such as depression, anxiety, betrayal, loss, confusion, disappointment with God, and personal failure. Consider the following examples: (All quotes from NIV)
“I am worn out from my groaning. All night long I flood my bed with weeping and drench my couch with tears. My eyes grow weak with sorrow; they fail because of my foes.” (Psalm 6:6-7)
“How long, Lord? Will you forget me forever? How long will you hide your face from me?” (Psalm 13:1)
“You have taken from me friend and neighbor – darkness is my closest friend.” (Psalm 88:18)
Yet for all their darkness, biblical laments are never cynical or fatalistic. This also is different from some of the sad songs we are used to. Even in the depths of emotional and spiritual distress, the psalmist (almost) always sees a flicker of hope.
The psalmist’s emotional journey pivots on a spoken or implied “but.” They say, despite how bad I feel now, I know this isn’t the end of the story. I choose to trust in God's goodness.
For example:
“But I trust in your unfailing love; my heart rejoices in your salvation. I will sing the Lord’s praise, for he has been good to me.” (Psalm 13:5-6)
“Weeping may stay for the night, but rejoicing comes in the morning.” (Psalm 30:5)
In their combination of honesty and hope, the Psalms of lament are a protest against the sadness of this world. They cry out, “This is not how things should be!” And they answer, “And it will not be this way forever!”
Laments show us that there is good reason for our longing. The world is indeed broken. The deepest questions of our souls have bright and good answers. Our pain is real, but it does not have to be final. There is hope.
The Hope of the Gospel
The New Testament makes this hope explicit. In stunning fulfillment of Isaiah’s prophecy, Jesus Christ “took up our pain and bore our suffering” (Isaiah 53:4). In his seemingly tragic death by execution, Jesus was actually fulfilling his mission to destroy the power that causes all sadness: the power of sin.
When sin entered the world, death came with it (Romans 5:12). With death came tears. But sin also drives us to harm one another and ourselves. Look back at that list of sad songs for proof.
Jesus came to set us free from everything that causes sadness—but we must first look in the mirror and reckon with what we see. This is called repentance. When we can be sad about our own sin, then we can actually ask Jesus to help us, which is where we find joy. Consider Jesus’ own description of this phenomenon: “Blessed [literally happy] are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.” The path to joy must go through tears.
And joy there is! Jesus was raised from the dead to give us a “living hope” (1 Peter 1:3). The gospel announces that when our lives are bound to Jesus Christ through faith, our present sadness is only a chapter in an ultimately happy story. All our sorrows have an expiration date. We await a home where “He [God] will wipe every tear from [our] eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away” (Revelation 21:4).
Why do We Still Need Sad Songs?
As long as we are still living in a fallen world, we still need sad songs.
Churches should sing songs of lament in worship. But we also need the “secular” sad songs. The best sad songs—not the cheesy, sentimental ones, or the nihilistic ones—teach us to be honest about our pain and the plight of the world. They remind us of the tragedy of death and the destructive power of sin. They help us understand our own sadness so that we can better express it to God. They give us compassion for others. They help us stay homesick for heaven.
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This has been true in my life. As an angsty teenager, I felt drawn to something real and true in sad songs. But my playlist only led to toxic introspection and gloom. When I became a Christian, my sadness found its true home. Now, when I listen to sad songs, they produce hope: I remember the comfort God has brought me in my own grief. I repent of my own sin and feel deep gratitude for forgiveness. I long, with tears, for the fullness of joy that Jesus will one day bring. I long for others to know the love of God through Jesus and the bright hope that he brings to a sad world.
Jesus is the answer to the questions. Yes, your pain matters. Yes, the pain is real. But no, it is not final. There is a happy ending. You are loved. In God's Story, to paraphrase what J.R.R. Tolkien wrote on the lips of Sam Gamgee, “everything sad is coming untrue.”
Or in the words of the Psalmist, “You turned my wailing into dancing; you removed my sackcloth and clothed me with joy, that my heart may sing your praises and not be silent” (Psalm 30:11-12).